Austria's 'Reich Mother' poised to return far-Right to prominence

A far-Right politician whose support for Holocaust deniers and 10 children
have earned her the nickname “Reich Mother” is poised to take her Freedom
Party to second place in Austria’s presidential race on Sunday.

Campaigning on an anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-feminist ticket, Barbara Rosenkranz, 51, is poised to pave the way for her party to return to its glory days a decade ago under Jörg Haider, the popular and charismatic leader who died in a car crash in 2008.

Mrs Rosenkranz has shocked Austria by calling for the country’s Holocaust denial laws to be repealed. She later signed a statement distancing herself from Nazism.

Germany’s Central Council of Jews has described Mrs Rosenkranz’s position as the main electoral challenger to Heinz Fischer, 71, the Austrian president, as part of a “terrifying shift to the Right” across Europe, following recent gains for far-Right parties in Hungary and France over the last two months.

Earlier this month, the far-Right took more parliamentary seats in neighbouring Hungary’s national elections than at any time since the Second World War and French regional elections last month saw an electoral revival for the National Front. In June, Dutch elections could propel Geert Wilders, whose anti-Islamic, hard-Right Freedom Party leads the polls, into power.

While the role of president in Austria is largely symbolic, it still has significant moral influence, and Mrs Rosenkranz’s personal background and political views have polarised the campaign.

Her husband, Horst, with whom she has had six daughters and four sons, publishes an extremist magazine, raises funds for imprisoned neo-Nazis, and was a member of a neo-Nazi party banned under the Holocaust denial legislation.

Mrs Rosenkranz’s party bills her as a “mother for Austria” and her election posters proclaim: “No courage, no values”.

Mrs Rosenkranz has called for laws compelling Austrian radio stations to play more German-language pop songs to preserve traditional Austrian culture.

When asked whether she believed the Nazis had murdered millions of Jews, she responded that freedom of expression included allowing people to hold “bizarre” opinions. Mrs Rosenkranz later said her answer was a “harsh and spontaneous” response to be being “treated like a schoolgirl” by a television interviewer. It is illegal to deny the Holocaust in Austria.

But her opposition to the European Union and immigration as “wrong and dangerous”, and her championing of a referendum on the building of minarets on mosques, have tapped into popular disenchantment with Austria’s political mainstream.

”Austria doesn’t defend its rights in the EU. Every other country defends their rights better than Austria,” she said last week.

Her proud declaration that she is a “housewife”, alongside attacks on feminism and “inhumane” nursery schools that separate mothers from infants, have also chimed with many Austrian voters.

Polls have predicted that she is on track to win her target of 17 per cent of Austria’s vote on April 25.